1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on roadway surfaces. In particular, the present invention pertains to a vehicle having a front and two rear drive wheels, where each of the wheels may be driven by the prime mover of the vehicle and power delivered to a slipping wheel will be automatically directed to wheels with traction. The vehicle also employs interchangeable rotating brush and pivoting wiper blade assemblies for spreading surface coating material, and a sprayer bar assembly for dispensing surface coating material to a roadway surface. The rotating brush and pivoting wiper assemblies are arranged to be selectively raised and lowered relative to the vehicle. The sprayer bar assembly is arranged to be selectively raised relative to the vehicle when the rotating brush is raised, and locked in its raised position with the rotating brush assembly being free to be raised and lowered.
2. Description of the Related Art
Roadway surfaces and traffic surfaces in general are exposed to the elements and the wear and tear of vehicle traffic, and in time deteriorate and need repair. Various types of machines have been developed which apply and spread surface coating material to traffic surfaces. Surface coating material has been applied to traffic surfaces in the past by vehicles or machines that dispense the materials by either spraying, brushing, and/or smoothing with a squeegee. While these prior art machines have been effective in applying the material to repair traffic surfaces, many prior art machines are disadvantaged in that they are designed to be used primarily on flat, horizontal surfaces.
Prior art machines often employ only a single drive wheel at the front of the vehicle. This single wheel makes it difficult to use the machine on an inclined surface as the single drive wheel located at the front of the vehicle will loose some of its tractive force and will often slip as it pulls the vehicle up the incline. With the front wheel being the only driven wheel in many prior art machines, this problem makes it very difficult to operate these machines on anything other than a horizontal road surface.
Prior art surface coating machines have also experienced problems in the methods employed in spreading surface coating materials over uneven road surfaces. For example, in surface coating machines employing squeegees or wipers, spreading the coating material before the wiper will tend to cause the material to accumulate to a deeper thickness in low spots in the uneven surface of the road. On road surfaces that have been purposely laid with a lateral incline to allow rain to run off to the side of the road, prior art machines operating on such roads often apply and spread a thicker accumulation of coating material at the outside or lower most edge of the laterally inclined road surface than at the inside or uppermost surface. Although spraying, brushing, and smoothing squeegee assemblies have been developed to provide a variety of means of applying surface coating material to inclined and uneven road surfaces, prior machines are often limited to use with only one or two of these application means, that being the sprayer with a brush or the sprayer with a squeegee. Where a brush or a squeegee may be effective in spreading surface coating material on certain road surfaces, they alone are not effective in spreading material efficiently over all road surfaces that would likely be encountered during the useful life of the machine.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages found in prior art surface coating machines by providing a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on traffic surfaces having three drive wheels that are automatically operated, and that is adapted to apply and spread surface coating material to traffic surfaces by spraying, brushing and/or smoothing with a wiper assembly.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a three wheeled vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material, where each of the three wheels is automatically driven by a separate hydraulic motor associated with that wheel, wherein driving power is supplied to all three wheels simultaneously, or driving power is automatically diverted from a slipping wheel and is directed to wheels with traction to maintain constant the driving power delivered to the wheels with traction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on traffic surfaces that employs a driven front wheel, and having an auxiliary water tank positioned over and forward of the wheel to enhance the traction of that wheel when driving up inclined surfaces.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on traffic surfaces that employs a spray bar assembly for depositing surface coating materials on the surfaces, and also employs interchangeable rotating brush and pivoting wiper assemblies.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on traffic surfaces that alternately employs a rotating brush and pivoting wiper assembly that are both arranged to be selectively pivoted laterally from side to side about a vertical axis, and vertically up and down about a horizontal axis.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle for applying and spreading surface coating material on traffic surfaces that employs a sprayer bar assembly and a rotating brush assembly that are arranged to be raised relative to the vehicle, and the sprayer bar assembly is capable of being locked in place to enable lowering and raising the brush assembly independent of the sprayer bar assembly.